Notes
An Extremely Brief History of How Video Has Changed the World
Introduction
We interact with video everyday—unconsciously and consciously. But, just how much has video changed, in meaning and medium, since its inception in the 1950s? Video distinguishes itself from other audiovisual media, like film, because of its democratic nature and malleable form. This enables video to be the perfect tool for protest, activism, and storytelling. From conversations about the Nelson Sullivan collection and documenting downtown to a celebration of Paper Tiger, join NYU-TV as we highlight the many uses of video—video as an art form, video as protest, video as storytelling, and video as an archive. These videos and more can be viewed in our vimeo showcase, How Has Video Changed the World? This collection was inspired by and features some of the artists currently on display at the MOMA exhibit, Signals: How Video Changed the World.
A Video Technology Timeline
Cable: Video as a Democratizing Force
Compared to film, which was more expensive to make and produce, TV was democratizing in its nature. For viewers of commercial TV, they could witness historic events like the moon landing from the comfort of their own homes. For artists, they could produce videos in the relatively inexpensive form of public access television.
In the 1970s, cable began to develop rapidly due to carrying capacity and ability to diversify programming. Public access television grew as a form of alternative media activism that was the antithesis of mainstream media. The filmmakers George Stoney and Red Burns are largely credited with propelling the public consciousness around the necessity for access television and pushing for changes in legislation. In fact, Burns and Stoney founded the Alternate Media Center and taught for many years here at New York University!
After the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) mandated that cable operators were required to provide public, educational, and governmental access channels or PEGs, there was a rise in public access television. The 1972 mandate required the top 100 television markets to provide one public channel, one educational channel, and one government channel. However, the provision of PEGs, a community good, did not last long. In the 1979 Supreme Court case, Federal Communications Commission v. Midwest Video Corporation, the court ruled the FCC was overextending its power by requiring cable operators to provide PEG channels. The nature of access television changed into a community run industry with no federal support (Stein, 2001).
While pulling back FCC mandates posed obvious drawbacks such as gathering funding, the reversal of FCC rules also provided new opportunities for public access television. Cable operators federal government restrictions were less stringent which allowed for new, radical community-led TV projects under public access TV.
Paper Tiger TV
Paper Tiger TV(PPTV) was one of the most prolific and well-supported early public access television networks. The first episodes featured media critic, Herbert Schiller deconstructing The New York Times articles.
Paper Tiger Television rapidly developed into a community of artists, activists, and scholars that inspired independent media movements like the DIY community media movement. You can listen to founder Dee Dee Halleck and other members of PPTV discuss public access television and the development of Paper Tiger in NYU-TV’s Vimeo collection, How Has Video Changed the World? in the video, Paper Tiger's 30th Anniversary.
Jaime Davidovich
Another artist who recognized the importance of TV as an artform and method of disseminating information was video artist, Jaime Davidovich. Davidovich founded Cable Soho, a public access television station that produced, “The Live! Show,” which was also hosted by Davidovich. In “The Live! Show,” Davidovich interviewed celebrities, did painting tutorials in Bob Ross-esque fashion, and did commercial parodies.
Many of his works are kept at the Fales Library & Special Collections. Some of “The Live! Show,” segments are also featured in the MOMA exhibit, Signals: How Video Changed the World.
Art: Video as Activism
Content Warning: This section mentions content that may be difficult for some viewers to read or watch, including but not limited to war crimes, concentration camps, anti-semitism, and police brutality.
Film: Precursor to Video
Film, the predecessor to video, was already being used to document the social injustices around us. One early example was the 1935 film, Housing Problems, produced by the United Kingdom’s General Post Office which documented the living conditions of slum residents. This film not only changed the general public’s attitudes toward residents, but indirectly led to changes in housing policy (Harding, 1997).
Film as Evidence
Famously, film that documented the atrocities of the Holocaust was used as evidence in the Nuremberg Trials. However, in a turn of events not only were films documented by Allied powers used as evidence, but campaign and home videos from the German government and army were utilized as evidence as well.
This legacy of video documenting evidence of atrocities being used on trial has continued into the present day. For example, more recently, we have seen bodycam footage and public video being presented during the Dereck Chauvin trials.
Video Revolution
As new technologies, such as video cameras developed, the power of using audiovisual media as a form of activism really transformed in the 1970s. Artists were no longer beholden to the censorship of the film industry or the bulkiness of film cameras.
The Sony Portapak was one of these early video cameras used by artists like Andy Warhol and Nam June Paik as it allowed for portability, instant playback, and easy re-recording. This not only allowed video artists to simply document injustices, but utilize the medium creatively to make scathing political or social critiques.
The Camcorder
We see the medium of video as a tool for social and political critique being perfected in the 1980s and 1990s with the public access channels, Paper Tiger TV and Cable Soho mentioned in the previous chapter, Cable: Video as a Democratizing Force. But what made this video revolution possible and accessible was the camcorder, a portable device that had the video camera and recorder in one hand-held unit. One of the first camcorder’s available for the public to use was the Sony Betacam released in 1983.
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The development of the camcorder coincided with social movements locally and globally. One example is Walid Raad, a video artist who documented the Lebanese Wars from 1975-1990. under the project The Atlas Group. You can watch Walid Raad and Akram Zaatari discuss their photo projects that were featured in NYU’s Grey Art Gallery in our vimeo showcase, How Has Video Changed the World?
Video Activism Today
The rapid development of video technology has once again enabled video activism to move beyond the realm of artists into everyday people. The modern iteration of the smartphone with Apple’s iPhone in 2007 has allowed for even more portability and easy access than the video camcorder. While people continue to critique mainstream media with through video as they have in the past, there has also been increased attention to recording climate crises and police brutality in recent years. The power of the smartphone is coupled with the development of social media which has made sharing political videos to a wider audience much easier. Mobile video activism is sometimes criticized for being lazy, desensitizing people to violent imagery, or creating misinformation.
Vlogging: Video as Storytelling
Video not only offered individuals the power to tell stories of the social and political injustices around them, but it also allowed many to tell deeply personal stories about themselves and their immediate circles. The first vlog, a story of one’s daily life in video format, was thought to be posted by Adam Kontras in January 2, 2000 on his blog The Journey.
Of course, people had been making home videos to document special moments for decades at this point. But, vlogging distinguishes itself from home videos in two ways. One such way is that videos in vlogs found ways to be shared to an audience beyond the family unit. First, with personal blogs on the Internet and then with the advent of Youtube in 2005.(Kaminsky, Naked Lens,2010).
The second way vlogging distinguishes itself from the home videos of the '90s is in its storytelling. Video blogs found meaning in the mundane, everyday moments. Moreover, the cameraman was often an active participant in the storytelling, because he or she spoke directly to the camera.
Nelson Sullivan and Vlogging in the 1980s
Storytelling where the camera person is an active participant is present in Nelson Sulivan’s vlogs. Sullivan, a videographer captured himself, his friends, and many subcultures such as drag and punk in the downtown scene. The earlier half of his extensive video collection was filmed on a VHS camcorder and the latter half was recorded on the much lighter, 8mm camcorder.
Many of these videos are housed at the Fales Library & Special Collections and can also be viewed on 5NinthAvenueProject. An in-depth discussion of Sullivan’s lifes and vlogs with his close companions took place in 2013 and can be viewed in the NYU-TV showcase, How Has Video Changed the World?
In many ways, Sullivan’s videos and vlogs in general encapsulated the idea of video verite which derived from cinema verite. Video verite was the notion of filming someone with the intention of portraying realism without the barrier of a camera.
Preservation: Video as an Archive
From the different mediums we use to make videos to different formats we watch videos in, video is constantly adapting. From camcorders to smartphones, how we record video has changed so much in the past 70 years. To ensure these vital pieces of history are not lost to the obsolete formats of video, it is important to preserve and archive videos.
Cultural institutions such as libraries and museums are essential to preserving and maintaining these archives. For example, the Fales Library & Special Collections at NYU maintains over 90,000 audiovisual items.
However, the institutions that document the original events may also end up being the preservers of the material. One such archive is GoNightClubbing, which documented punk performances from NYC nightclubs in the 1980s. A deeper discussion on GoNightClubbing with the founders Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong can be found in our showcase, How Has Video Changed the World?
Video archiving is not limited to organizations or institutions, individuals have the power to preserve and archive their own video history. By finding meaning in video that would otherwise be lost, organizing it, protecting, preserving, and archiving it, it is in this way that archiving video becomes an artform.